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Academic researchers within the ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· work in a variety of areas, from cell biology to animal locomotion; based across both campuses, Camden and Hawkshead. The Researcher Association (RA) represents research staff at all stages, from research assistants to fixed-term senior research fellows across the ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ·, within the Research Concordat Working Group. The RA also provides training and social opportunities as well as a means for short-term staff to interact with the wider college.

Who are we?

The current RA team are: Dr Floryne Buishand (Hawkshead, CSS), Dr Melanie Hay (Boltons Park; PPS), Dr John Hildyard (Camden; CSS), Dr Andrew Mead (Hawkshead, CBS) and Dr Esther Palomino Lago (Hawkshead, CSS).

Contact us at researcherassoc@rvc.ac.uk, add us on  .

As further support to contract researchers, expert scientists within each department are happy to give advice on their scientific career and how to utilise the ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ·'s training and development programmes to their full potential:

• Comparative Biomedical Sciences (CBS): Prof. Caroline Wheeler-Jones and Prof. Andy Pitsillides
• Clinical Science and Services (CSS): Prof Nicola Menzies-Gow, Prof. Richard Piercy, Dr. Jayesh Dudhia and Dr. Abbe Crawford (¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· Clinical Research Facilitator)
• Pathobiology and Population Sciences (PPS): Prof. Dirk Werling

What events do we organise?

We try our best to get together as a research community as often as possible here at ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ·.

The Researcher Association organises several events during the year. We focus on Career Development events and Social events to increase our networking opportunities.

Research Highlights

¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· Research Highlights aims to bring together ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· staff from different Departments to share the most up-to-date findings of ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· research and explore their wider impact on the world. In addition to lectures and short talks it also includes the yearly photo competition at the event. ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· researchers showcase photographs that represent their research. The photographs are presented in a gallery in the conference centre, with attendees able to vote for their favourite in each category on the day. The Research Highlights is held annually at Hawkshead.

Annual Postgraduate Research Day

The Postgraduate Research Day is organised by the Graduate School and the Researcher Association. This event provides an opportunity for PhD and MRes students to showcase their work to fellow students and staff, to practice their skills at presenting their work and to receive constructive feedback on their research. There are final year PhD presentations along with posters by MRes and 2^nd year PhD students. Graphical Abstracts produced by 1^st year PhD students and MRes students are on view as well.

Social Events

The RA organises regular coffee events. There are quarterly coffees for new starters to welcome them to the ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· and regular coffees for the wider ¹ú²ú¸ßÇåavÍøÖ· research staff enabling researchers to connect with colleagues from other Departments.  

Training

The Researcher Association aims to promote training and personal development for fixed-term researchers. Throughout the year, training sessions are made available to all staff for the development of research specific skills, such as Public Engagement, Grant Writing and Mixed Effects Modelling, as well as soft skills, such as Managing Pressure, Assertiveness and Imposter Syndrome. All the courses and workshops provided have been specifically designed for PhD and Postdoctoral researchers and are aimed at enhancing personal, professional and career skills to a high level, and have been mapped to the Researcher Development Framework. More information on training activities can be found on the .